The moment people make vandal protection their jobs or count these efforts as their credentials, things have gone wrong, very wrong. The person is offering up skills that are unrelated, in essence, to the site. They are not user content, are not to the purpose of the site, and are socially corrosive, as they foster a world that must be populated by enemies. A vandal hunter will never accept "all is well" as a verdict. The job may be necessary, but it is necessary as a function of site maintenance, not site function. The function is the cause people assemble around.

QUOTE

The only administrators who should be working at user-generated content sites should be the tribe of Cincinnatus. As with American democracy, the story of Cincinnatus is central. The reason is simple: those attackers, distractors, and detractors, and especially the professionals, have no problem becoming administrators. Additionally, people with a strong desire to be important are dangerous to others. People who want to be powerful online are sometimes exorcising demons of their personal lives, and this usually ends in tears.

QUOTE

Because nuts are plentiful in the dish, people would miss, often, the meats. In fact, haughty and juvenile administrators would sometimes fail to investigate at all and thus create vandals out of users.

Looks good to me. Now, if only some of those wiki-flakes would read it.

QUOTE

Thus, it's kind of irritating to know that I wrote the article on Orrmulum there, and I had a citation at the end of every flippin' line that needed one, and then some spiteful jackal removed them and slapped a "citations needed" tag on it.

Sure enough, he and that idiot Jalwikip got into it in 2007 over inline cites. And more rulebook-throwers showed up in 2010.

In my own estimation, the end of Wikipedia came with the use of IRC channels. The moment there was an "3leets" group or a place where decisions were made that were not recorded or portable over to more open media, the underlying principle of the project was gone. More to the point, though, it exacerbated every other problem.

Have to admit that Geogre's statement about the rise of IRC uses is right. Gone is transparency. Everything happens on one IRC or another, not visible to most editors.

The lack of transparency isn't the real problem, it's the lack of accountability. Wikipedia has a plethora of segregated communication channels, and is horribly siloed. This appears to be by design, probably because in such an environment a great deal of power can be obtained by brokering community knowledge, and so those who have thereby acquired power are loath to allow change. The IRC channels are merely one symptom of this broader issue.

Geogre's ranting is misdirected; he is mainly annoyed that he failed in his quest for power and recognition, and is mainly bitching about the aspects of Wikipedia that thwarted him in that regard. He simply did not have enough time to spend all of it in the sort of information brokering that is the path to power on Wikipedia, probably because he has something of a life. His "solutions" would, in many cases, not actually have improved Wikipedia; they would merely make it serve his interests better. That said, some of his ideas were indeed good; I was very fond of his "pure wiki deletion" concept, for example.

There are some good comments in his blog, but he's still a long way off from letting go.

The lack of transparency isn't the real problem, it's the lack of accountability.

Lack of transparency = lack of accountability.

Bad enough that people have non real world user names, often changed and/or with the signature changed, and with sockpuppets galore, playing elaborate games with names, but on IRC they do the same thing: change "handles", signature's etc.

IRC decisions are not transparent decisions, often made by a small group of editors who happened to be on that IRC, and no one is held accountable for them when these conversations have effects on the wiki.

Anyone else wondering why Sue Gardner (connected to the Daily Kos) would allow for a disgrace admin that used a sock puppet to help him harass other people and game the consensus system at Wikipedia for over two years to write about admin related matters?

Anyone else wondering why Sue Gardner (connected to the Daily Kos) would allow for a disgrace admin that used a sock puppet to help him harass other people and game the consensus system at Wikipedia for over two years to write about admin related matters?

This is a grossly exaggerated, unfair, and misleading description of Geogre's behavior.

Anyone else wondering why Sue Gardner (connected to the Daily Kos) would allow for a disgrace admin that used a sock puppet to help him harass other people and game the consensus system at Wikipedia for over two years to write about admin related matters?

This is a grossly exaggerated, unfair, and misleading description of Geogre's behavior.

One of many places where evidence that the Geogre/Utgard Loki dual discussing crossed the line.

He also used the two accounts to tag team John Carter, a highly respected admin, in addition to using the two accounts to try and have me banned multiple times, have pages of mine deleted, etc.

Is this appropriate behavior for an admin? Are you speaking here as an Arbitrator who had substantial evidence of Geogre's socking, tag teaming, following after people and insulting them simultaneously on two names, etc?

Anyone else wondering why Sue Gardner (connected to the Daily Kos) would allow for a disgrace admin that used a sock puppet to help him harass other people and game the consensus system at Wikipedia for over two years to write about admin related matters?

This is a grossly exaggerated, unfair, and misleading description of Geogre's behavior.

One of many places where evidence that the Geogre/Utgard Loki dual discussing crossed the line.

He also used the two accounts to tag team John Carter, a highly respected admin, in addition to using the two accounts to try and have me banned multiple times, have pages of mine deleted, etc.

Is this appropriate behavior for an admin? Are you speaking here as an Arbitrator who had substantial evidence of Geogre's socking, tag teaming, following after people and insulting them simultaneously on two names, etc?

I adhere to my views as posted on-wiki two years ago when the motions concerning Geogre were voted on. Going into them again at length here is unlikely to be productive in any context, and especially not in a discussion with you.

I adhere to my views as posted on-wiki two years ago when the motions concerning Geogre were voted on.

Yes, you made it clear: sock puppetry is acceptable when you like the person. Just like you were involved in getting Unitanode to move to his 8th sock account when knowing that 3 of the accounts were used at the same time, in the same discussion, and that he "restarted" 4 times before right as multiple people were putting him up for ban/block discussions.

How is this acting like a responsible Arbitrator by encouraging bad behavior by people who use sock puppets to destroy consensus and personally attack people in really nasty ways?

By the way, I like how you completely disagree with Coren who made it clear that it was abuse and that it is nonsense to claim otherwise.

Anyone who sees this statement from Durova can easily see that you are full of it if you dare try to say Geogre acted appropriately. He was one of the worst of the worst, and the bad thing is that you probably helped him get a new name like you did Unitanode.

Thatcher, you seemed to think that Geogre clearly abused multiple accounts. Do you think NYBrad is speaking properly on the matter?

By the way: The original ArbCom motion states: "Geogre is indefinitely prohibited from maintaining any other alternate account without disclosing it publicly. Geogre is strongly admonished for sockpuppeting and his actions related thereto."

Such a statement makes it clear that you cannot claim Geogre didn't abuse sock puppets to harass people.

I adhere to my views as posted on-wiki two years ago when the motions concerning Geogre were voted on.

Yes, you made it clear: sock puppetry is acceptable when you like the person. Just like you were involved in getting Unitanode to move to his 8th sock account when knowing that 3 of the accounts were used at the same time, in the same discussion, and that he "restarted" 4 times before right as multiple people were putting him up for ban/block discussions.

How is this acting like a responsible Arbitrator by encouraging bad behavior by people who use sock puppets to destroy consensus and personally attack people in really nasty ways?

By the way, I like how you completely disagree with Coren who made it clear that it was abuse and that it is nonsense to claim otherwise.

Anyone who sees this statement from Durova can easily see that you are full of it if you dare try to say Geogre acted appropriately. He was one of the worst of the worst, and the bad thing is that you probably helped him get a new name like you did Unitanode.

Thatcher, you seemed to think that Geogre clearly abused multiple accounts. Do you think NYBrad is speaking properly on the matter?

By the way: The original ArbCom motion states: "Geogre is indefinitely prohibited from maintaining any other alternate account without disclosing it publicly. Geogre is strongly admonished for sockpuppeting and his actions related thereto."

Such a statement makes it clear that you cannot claim Geogre didn't abuse sock puppets to harass people.

And yet, strangely enough, you are incontrovertibly worse than Geogre by the standards of Wikipedia. You are permabanned on multiple projects. You are reviled even here at WR. You are the permanent pile of poo on the wikipedia lawn.

Thatcher, you seemed to think that Geogre clearly abused multiple accounts. Do you think NYBrad is speaking properly on the matter?

I can't judge the "properness" of any other person's opinion. My own opinion is that people should not be dicks, whether with one or multiple accounts.

I'm not talking about his opinion. I'm talking about his characterization of my pointing out that Geogre abused multiple accounts to harass people while as an admin (NYB: "This is a grossly exaggerated, unfair, and misleading description of Geogre's behavior.")

Is it a gross exaggeration of me to say that?

I mean, afterall, the socks were used to put up pages of mine for deletion because he didn't like this page (originally called Swift's printers) nor my working on the Drapier's Letter page, then was involved with both names when Bishonen proposed to indef me and Unitanode also proposed the same.

He did the same thing to Durova, to John Carter, and to others, so it wasn't just me. The actions spanned from 2007 until mid 2009.

What part of my comments suggest that my claim that he was abusive were exaggerations?

Sure you are. You want me to judge whether Brad's opinion of you is fair. That's a slightly different question than I thought I was answering, but my answer is the same. I won't pass judgement on Brad's opinion of you (or of your opinion of him, for that matter).

If I thought I had all the answers, I would have run for Arbcom and would now be telling people how to run things on WP (or more likely, disagreeing with others on Arbcom who have the opposite view and consequently not accomplishing anything at all). I hope I have finally outgrown my adolescent judgmental phase. I probably still judge people privately in my mind -- who doesn't -- although I try not to. In this case I respectfully decline to offer a judgment on whether Brad's opinion of your opinion of Geogre's actions, or Brad's opinion of your opinion of Brad's opinion of Geogre's actions, or whatever else you are asking, is fair or unfair.

Sure you are. You want me to judge whether Brad's opinion of you is fair. That's a slightly different question than I thought I was answering, but my answer is the same. I won't pass judgement on Brad's opinion of you (or of your opinion of him, for that matter).

No. I'm asking you for -your- opinion of -my- opinion. Not Brad's. Ultimately, the two views of my opinion could be compared to each other.

But yes, the ArbCom ruling made it clear that Geogre was desysopped for abuse of socks, and that Coren originally blocked Utgard Loki for a lot of evidence of abuse. Bishonen also had multiple RfCs involving her knowledge of his abuse, which suggests that Geogre's abuse was so bad that others with knowledge were contributing to the badness.

Such an individual should not be given a podium to declare what good admining is because his experience involved him using sock puppets to not only stack the deck but to attack his opposition in an unfair way.

We all know I utterly despise sock puppets and think that they are one of the worst possible things that the Wiki has to deal with. If we got rid of the sock puppets, I would be confident that over 50% of the problems would vanish or become easier to deal with.